Transparent cultivation

  • IPACS,

    Did you change something over the last few months in the way distant cultivation appears? In my article at Flightsim.com, I praised the program for not having autogen that pops in as you get closer, (comparing it with the infamous popping in as exhibited in FSX). But, recently I notice transparent buildings in AFS2. Get closer and they become solid, fly away and they disappear. I do not remember noticing this before. Did something change? And if so, can the change be reversed as it is not very appealing.

    - Kenneth

  • We haven't changed anything in a long time regarding distance loading but it was adjusted to improve performance back then.

    Can you provide us with more information at to what you are seeing, and where its evident?

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Hello Jeff

    An example.. Using IZ0JUB's recent Florida Tampa, and Jetjockey10's fsCloudport airport of KPIE (St Pete Clearwater).

    Take off from St Pete Rwy 36. Climb to 1500ft, and fly on a heading of approx 290. Set visibility so you can clearly see the coast ahead of you. Watch as the invisible high rise buildings on the coast slowly materialize into view.

    I saw the same in Miami. And we were having it with cultivated buildings on Honolulu on the Oahu project, until the city cultivation was replaced by a 3d model.

    Regards

    Kenneth

  • Watch as the invisible high rise buildings on the coast slowly materialize into view.

    This is to be expected when autogen is used to create high rise buildings.

    Basically what happens with autogen buildings and trees is that they are generated within an approx 6km radius of your aircraft but not beyond that (this saves GPU processing power). For low height houses and trees, you don't notice the fading effect because they blend in with the ortho tiles as the background.

    However, with tall autogen objects like high rise buildings, where the sky is the background, you will notice the fade-in effect.

    The solution is to use actual 3D building objects for any structure you want to see at long distances. IPACS South Florida add-on has an awesome Miami skyline of tall buildings you can see from very far away (like in real life). It's one giant custom 3D object.

    When I was experimenting with lighted radio towers 18 months ago, I tried using autogen to create 1m x 1m x 500m towers. You could see the flashing lights from great distances but the radio towers were invisible until you got within 6km of them. I switched to radio tower 3D objects from ZoSoChile and now you can see the South Florida Towers add-on from great distances.